b. (not in technical usage) denoting the consonants c and g in English when they are pronounced as palatal or alveolar fricatives or affricates (s, /dʒ/, /ʃ/, /ð/, /tʃ/) before e and i, rather than as velar stops (k, g)

c. (in the Slavonic languages) palatalized before a front vowel or a special character (soft sign) written as ь

24. (Military)

a. unprotected against attack: a soft target.

b. military unarmoured, esp as applied to a truck by comparison with a tank

Thus chatting pleasantly the band turned back into the woodland and sought their secluded dell, where the trees were the thickest, the moss was the softest, and a secret path led to a cave, at once a retreat and a stronghold.

She is decorated all over with beads and bracelets and embroidered dandelions; but her principal decoration consists of the softest little gray eyes in the world, which rest upon you with a profundity of confidence--a confidence that I really feel some compunction in betraying.

And Jerry, alert to his toes to listen, by an alteration in the quantity or quality of his whuff, would tell Nalasu that he did not hear; next, that he did hear; and, perhaps finally, that it was a strange dog, or a wood-rat, or a man, or a boy--all in the softest of sounds that were scarcely more than breath-exhalations, all monosyllables, a veritable shorthand of speech.

Within abundance of silver paper was a pretty little Tunbridgeware box, which Harriet opened: it was well lined with the softest cotton; but, excepting the cotton, Emma saw only a small piece of courtplaister.

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